Friday, 11 October 2013, 17:30 UTC

The release of MEDIASTAN is timed to challenge the UK opening today of THE FIFTH ESTATE - the multi-million dollar Hollywood anti-WikiLeaks movie produced by Dreamworks in collaboration with Disney. UK audiences will be able to watch MEDIASTAN online for free during The Fifth Estate’s opening weekend.

For the first time ever, audiences get a behind-the-scenes insight into the world’s first truly global media event: "Operation Cablerun" : the 2011 operation during which WikiLeaks ran hundreds of thousands of secret US government cables to media outlets around the world.

In MEDIASTAN, an undercover team of journalists drives across the central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and into US occupied Afghanistan, before continuing its journey into the west; regrouping in Julian Assange’s kitchen, ambushing the editor of the Guardian, and obtaining candid footage of the New York Times editor and its publisher Arthur Sulzberger speaking about Obama.

Julian Assange, explaining why he produced the film stated, “Central Asia is the most fascinating geopolitical region in the world. It is the cream in the geopolitical layer cake. On the top, Russia, on the bottom, China; in the middle, a fight for US influence" But, Mr. Assange explained, "what started out as a geopolitical road movie transformed into a tale of comparative censorship as our adventure continued into the unexpected heart of MEDIASTAN."

Following a trail of censorship and media collusion with power eventually takes them to the London Guardian and the New York Times.

The Guardian’s editor Alan Rusbridger, questioned by Assange, talks about how the Guardian censored US cables about rich kleptocrats and western oil companies.

New York Times editor Bill Keller unknowingly talks about the Times’ daily telephone calls with the US government, his decision to conceal the NSA’s mass surveillance program and the newspaper’s ’favourite subject’—WikiLeaks.

MEDIASTAN director Johannes Wahlström explained "Mediastan is not so much a physical place as it is a state of mind among many of the journalists and editors who form our perceptions of the world."

Producer Julian Assange said: "This is journalism in extremis. This is how it is done. This weekend, instead of wasting your time and money on Hollywood propaganda, why not get all your friends around and spend your time watching MEDIASTAN instead?"

MEDIASTAN is fresh from its October 2nd London Raindance film festival premiere.